Too Nice
by clagjanet
Summary: Are nice strangers sometimes too nice? Amanda has concerns.


The disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour.

 **Too Nice**

 **.**

The woman sitting in the emergency room at Parker General Hospital didn't notice the trio arrive at first. It had been a coincidence she'd been there in the first place but when her brother had slipped and broken his arm, she'd been the only one around to take him to hospital. He had been taken away for x-rays and she was flipping through a two-year old Reader's Digest when she heard the voices on the other side of the screen. She perked up when she heard a name she recognized.

"Mrs. West? You are the boys' grandmother, is that correct? But their official guardian is Amanda King, their mother?"

"Yes that's right. But she's away right now with her work so I'm responsible for them."

"And their father?"

"Also away. He travels extensively to Africa."

The eavesdropping woman took a chance and pulled the curtain back a little so she could spy on the family on the other side. The two boys appeared unhurt but shaken. The grandmother was bleeding on her right temple and appeared to be sore on her right arm as well. She was still talking a mile a minute however.

"The boys are both fine though, aren't they? It was Kurt's door that took most of the impact."

"Well, we'll check them over anyway since they're here with you, while we wait for the doctor to come and stitch your forehead. I take it your head hit the side window when your car was hit?"

"You know it all happened so fast I suppose it must have. I know we had the green light but that car just came barreling through and went right into the side of us. Can you tell me anything about Kurt? I know I'm not next of kin but someone should call his daughter in Boston."

"He's been taken up to be x-rayed. I'll let you know when we know more and you can call his daughter then, how's that? My name is Sally, you can ask for me anytime."

The eavesdropper had heard enough. She slipped from the chair, found a payphone in the hall and dialled the man she jokingly called her partner in crime.

"I have some news that might interest you, darlin'."

The man at the end of the phone line chuckled. "I always love hearing the word on the street from you. What do you know?"

"Amanda King's mother and sons have just been brought into the emergency room here."

The sudden silence at the other end told her she had his full attention now.

"Any idea why?"

"Car accident from the sounds of it. They're not looking too banged up but I think the mother's boyfriend must be somewhere getting something more serious checked out. From the conversation I could hear the boys' father isn't around either."

"Can you keep an eye on them until I can get somebody there?"

"Of course darlin'. Anything for you."

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SMK. SMK. SMK SMK. SMK

Forty-five minutes later, Dotty found herself sitting in a waiting room, a boy on either side of her, now beginning to feel the shock of the accident starting to hit her. She had six stitches in her temple, and a sling to immobilize her arm until some of that soreness had worn off. She was grateful that Philip and Jamie were both fine but she still hadn't had any word on Kurt and the strain was beginning to show.

"Alright now boys. I need you to sit right here and not move while I go find out how Kurt is. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah Grandma but then can we find something to eat? I'm starving."

Dotty shook her head in amazement. Not even a violent car accident could get between Philip and his teenage appetite it seemed but then again it was almost nine and the boys hadn't had supper yet. Suddenly a voice came from the seats across from them.

"You go off and find about your friend ma'am. I'd be happy to keep an eye on your boys for you."

Dotty looked doubtfully at her. She was desperate to find out about Kurt but not so certain about leaving two rambunctious boys alone with a complete stranger. The woman sensed her hesitation and carried on talking.

"I'm not going anywhere and I'm sure they'll behave for me while you're gone, won't you boys?"

She looked at the boys with an encouraging expression. The younger one, Jamie she thought, looked from her face to his grandmother's and obviously seeing the strain in it, agreed hurriedly. "We'll be fine grandma. You go find Captain Kurt and then when you get back we can find some food for wormbrain."

"Don't call your brother wormbrain" answered Dotty absently. She glanced at the doors to the emergency area and back to the boys and the helpful stranger, obviously torn. "Are you sure?" she asked doubtfully. "I don't know how long I'll be."

"Sure I'm sure. My brother won't be done getting his cast done anytime soon."

Dotty turned to the boys and pointed to each of them in turn. "I will be back as soon as I can. Will you promise to be good until I get back?"

"Yeah Grandma" "Of course Grandma" chorused the boys.

Dotty sighed. "I'm not entirely sure I believe you but I need to find about Kurt." She laughed and turned to the woman, "Well at least if they get hurt we're already in a hospital right?"

"That's right. Now off you go and check on your man."

She waited until Dotty was out of sight behind the swinging doors of the treatment room before turning to the boys. "We should introduce ourselves. I'm Regina, how about you?" She waited for them to confirm the names she already knew and went on. "So why don't you two pass the time telling me all about yourselves. How did you guys end up here today?"

The boys immediately raced to compete to see which of them could describe most of the traffic accident that had brought them there, complete with sound effects and descriptions of the damage to both cars. While they were arguing over whether the car that had hit them was a Ford or a Chrysler, the sliding doors from the parking lot opened and she looked up to see a familiar face looking around the room. Eventually he saw her and she motioned almost imperceptibly towards the two boys with her head. He nodded in acknowledgement and smiled, his snaggle-tooth grin giving him a charm that she knew put people at ease, sometimes to their detriment. He sauntered over to drop into a seat near them, rubbing his hands absentmindedly on his torn and stained jeans.

He listened to the boys for a while before interrupting in a soft southern drawl to ask Philip some detail about Kurt's car and the damage it had sustained. Philip never needed any encouragement to talk about cars and was happy to describe the entire accident again in complete detail. The two adults' eyes met in a moment of complete understanding about how easy it was to distract young boys. Eventually even Philip ran out of steam and flopped back in his chair. "Man, I wish Grandma would come back. I'm starving!"

The man glanced at Jamie and asked "How about you, kid? You hungry?"

"Yeah" he admitted. We were on our way to grab dinner when we were hit and that was like two hours ago."

"Well how about I take you and your brother down to the vending machines to grab something. My treat."

Philip leapt to his feet right away but Jamie stayed seated, looking uncomfortable. "We told our grandma we wouldn't go anywhere."

The two adults looked at each other and came to a silent agreement. "Tell you what then. How about you stay here and wait for your grandma and me and your brother can go find something for everyone?"

Jamie looked at the woman who had promised their grandmother to watch them. "Seems like a good plan to me" she shrugged. "Maybe you could bring me back a coffee, Mr, uh?"

"Nelson," he drawled "but you can call me Jed."

"Well I'm Regina and this is Philip and Jamie." Jed nodded to let her know he'd understood what name she was using. "Jamie and I will wait here for his grandma while you two see what you can rustle up."

Jamie leaned back in his seat and watched as Philip and Jed disappeared down the hallway, Philip still chattering about cars and Jed matching him fact for fact about engines. He sighed deeply, suddenly tired. "I wish my mom was here."

"Hey I'm a mom, and it's nice to hear that kids still want us sometime. How about you tell me all about yours while we wait to see what they bring us back?"

It was Regina's turn to lean back and listen in amusement as Jamie told her absolutely everything about Amanda King.

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SMK. SMK. SMK. SMK. SMK

Amanda came back to the diner table and sat down with a worried expression. They'd been tracking their subject all day and had just handed it off to Francine and Fred to keep an eye on the Motel 6 room he was holed up in by the highway in Virginia Beach. They had been surviving on gas station snacks for hours and by the time she got back to the table, Lee was looking at the hamburger in his hands as if it was a beautiful woman. She sighed as she sat down and began picking at the fries on her plate listlessly.

"What's the problem at home?" Lee asked, noticing her mood and putting down the burger.

"I don't know and that's the problem. There's no one answering and it's 10 o'clock at night! Where are they?"

"Maybe they've just gone to a movie"

"Mother wouldn't have them out this late for a movie. Or anything else for that matter."

Lee put his hand over hers. "I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation. But let's finish eating and when I call Billy to check in, I'll ask him if someone can swing by the house and check it out, ok? Now eat. You don't eat enough at the best of times and you'll worry less on a full stomach."

Amanda's eyes narrowed as she looked across the table at Lee. "Are you saying I'm too skinny, Stetson?"

"Amanda, you are a very beautiful woman and I am a very smart man who is not going any further down that road of conversation because I know it can only end badly for me."

"Not so smart you didn't start down that road to start with though"

Lee took a huge mouthful of burger and pretended he hadn't heard her.

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SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK

Lee put down the phone as Amanda came out of the bathroom where she'd gone to change. "Billy called back. He says everyone's fine."

"Well that's a relief but I sure want to know where they were all this time."

"We'll be home tomorrow afternoon if we catch this guy at his meet in the morning. I'm sure there's nothing wrong. Billy would have said."

"Hmmm. Something's bothering me about it though."

Lee had spent too much time with Amanda to think her intuition wasn't to be trusted, but it was late and they'd had a long day. "Well Cinderella, it's almost midnight and if Billy Godmother says the mice are back in the kitchen, I'm parking the pumpkin and calling it a night." He was rewarded with a gurgle of laughter from Amanda.

"Lee, that made almost no sense. I'd say you were rambling but my rambles at least make sense!"

"You know what would make sense right now? Getting some sleep."

Amanda grinned and crawled under the covers of her bed. She looked across the bedside table at Lee, half asleep already on the other bed. "Goodnight Skippy"

"Goodnight Ling-Ling" came the sleepy reply.

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SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK

"Ok, so talk me through this again, Mother."

It was six o'clock the following evening and Amanda was trying to piece together the full story from her mother's rambling description of the accident along with the over excited interruptions from the boys.

"Well it's perfectly simple Amanda! We were coming back from Philip's game and this man came out of nowhere and ran right into the side of Kurt's car and then we all had to go to the hospital because Kurt's leg was broken and I needed stitches and it all took longer than we thought and we didn't get home until one in the morning and I didn't listen to your message until this morning but by then it seemed silly to call because we were fine, mostly, and you said you'd be home this afternoon and here you are!"

"And the boys weren't hurt at all? And your head isn't hurting too much?" Amanda reached over and pushed back Dotty's hair to inspect the stitches.

"Amanda! We're fine. Stop worrying so much. You know, this whole experience gave me new faith in human nature. The people at the hospital were so nice!"

Amanda laughed. "Well they're caregivers Mother, that's their job!"

"Well yes, that nurse Sally was very nice and she seemed to take a special interest in Kurt, but I meant Regina and Jed."

"Wait a minute, who are Regina and Jed?"

"They were just people in the waiting room who helped out with the boys. Regina stayed with them until I came back from finding out how Kurt was and then calling his daughter, and when I did get back, Jamie told me she'd sent her brother home in a cab so she could stay with him. And Jed took Philip off to get dinner for everybody and kept the boys amused until Kurt was ready to go home."

"Jed was cool!" interrupted Philip. "He knew all about cars and how to fix them and when the vending machine ate some of our money, he knew how to hit it just right to get it to give it back!"

"Like Fonzie?" smiled Amanda.

Philip rolled his eyes. "Way cooler than Fonzie, mom! Although he did have a leather jacket."

"And he told us all stories about growing up in Oklahoma on a ranch." added Jamie.

"And when Kurt's daughter got there to take him home, he insisted on giving us a ride home because he said it was late and he wouldn't want anyone to worry about us." finished Dotty.

Amanda blinked at this last rush of information. "He drove you home? Wasn't that out of his way?"

"He said he had family in the neighbourhood"

The hair on Amanda's neck was starting to stand up. Something was very odd about this story. "How did he know this was your neighbourhood? And why was he at the hospital? What about the person he was with?"

Dotty looked struck by the question. "You know, I never thought about any of that! I have no idea why he was there. Did he tell you, boys?" Both boys just shrugged.

"Well did he have a last name?"

"Nelson!" All three answered her at once.

"So Regina and Jed Nelson?" Amanda was trying hard to figure out the details on these overly helpful strangers.

"Oh no, Amanda. Regina wasn't with Jed. I don't think she ever said her last name now that I think of it. Which is a pity because I'd like to thank her properly for staying so late with us. It was past midnight when we left and she stayed to watch the boys every time I had to go check on Kurt."

Amanda decided she should stop the interrogation before her mother got suspicious about all the questions, but she knew she'd be asking Lee for help on it in the morning. If this spying business had taught her anything, it was that if something or someone seemed too good to be true, they probably were. And these someones seemed just a little too interested in her family.

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SMK. SMK. SMK. SMK. SMK

Amanda was still trying to explain it all to Lee as they crossed the bullpen towards Billy's office.

"I just think it's weird that these two total strangers were so nice!"

"You're that nice" grinned Lee.

Amanda threw him a smile at the compliment. "Yeah but this was too nice. It was like they were taking a personal interest in my family and I don't know why but something about the whole story is bugging me."

"Maybe your famous intuition is just on hyper alert because you were so worried when you couldn't get hold of them." Lee guided her around the last desk and followed her into Billy's office.

"Maybe" she sighed and then smiled at her boss. "Good morning sir!"

"Good morning Amanda! How's the family? Everyone ok after their late night out?"

"Yes sir, thank you sir! And thank you for checking on them for me."

"My pleasure Amanda. You know your family is like my family."

She smiled at him but something in what he said echoed in her head and as she sat down in one of the chairs opposite him, she got a far off look in her eye while she tried to tease the memory to the front of her brain. Billy grinned. He could practically hear the cogs turning in her head.

"Was there something else, Amanda?"

Lee sat down in the other chair and looked at his boss. "She's worried that the nice strangers at the hospital were too nice."

Billy chuckled. "Have you been with us too long Amanda? Are you starting to be suspicious of everyone?"

"No sir, I just think it's odd that two strangers would stay for so long to help them out. Mother says it was past midnight when they left so Regina must have sat there with them for at least six hours." She stopped suddenly as she thought back to her conversation with Lee in the motel the night before and a tiny piece of information clicked into place. Billy's grin broadened as he watched the agent side of Amanda kick into overdrive.

She began to speak, piecing it together as she went. "It was past midnight when they left the hospital and the pumpkin was parked by then." Even Lee looked confused and he usually understood Amanda's rambles. "You told Lee they were fine after you checked on why they weren't home."

Billy was enjoying watching her mind at work and openly smiling now. "And weren't they fine?"

"Yes but..." Amanda's voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed as she thought through everything her mother had said the previous night. Her eyes focused on a point on the wall just past Billy's shoulder. He chuckled when he saw it in her expression when the last piece went into place. She leapt to her feet and stepped around the desk to lean down and kiss him on the cheek. "Thank you Billy and tell her thank you from me as well. Now who's Jed?"

"You don't know?"

Amanda stood for a moment thinking before it came to her. She turned without speaking and walked out of the office. Lee had watched the entire exchange in complete confusion. Billy leaned back and grinned at him. "Your partner is a really smart woman."

Lee, who had stood up when Amanda had, turned back from watching her leave the office and stared at him, playing catch-up with all the snippets of conversation before he too began to see the light. "Billy, you knew they were fine before they ever left the hospital, didn't you?"

Billy nodded, enjoying the fact that Scarecrow was five minutes behind Amanda on figuring it out. "You have your family of spies Lee, and I have mine."

Lee's eyes narrowed. "You haven't been in the field in fifteen years Billy. What kind of family do you still have?" Billy smile broadened. Lee glanced up and saw the same thing on the wall that Amanda had and suddenly understood. "Damnit, Jeanie is a nickname for Regina isn't it?" he sighed. "Well then who's Jed?"

Billy grinned at him. "Amanda got it in less than thirty seconds, Lee. And she probably didn't even realize your nurse friend Sally was watching out for them the whole time they were in there." Billy loved seeing Lee expression of surprise that his 'family' had been involved. "Amanda has made a lot of very good friends here in the last three years. They take care of their own."

"She does bring out the protective streak in people, I know". Lee paused and went back to the matter at hand. "So Jed is... oh, of course!" Lee got up and went to leave the office before stopping to lean back in and say "Thanks Billy."

Billy held up his hands. "I had nothing to do with it really. They all did it on their own once they knew."

"Well, tell Jeanie thanks from me too. But I'm not going to kiss you." Lee turned and strode quickly across the bull pen and towards the elevator. He could hear Billy laughing as he went.

Amanda must have had a longer wait for the elevator than he had because, even with her head start, Lee arrived in time to see her scoot around the counter and throw her arms around Leatherneck. His grin widened when he saw the look of panic on Leatherneck's face when he saw Lee walk in the door.

"Ace, I didn't do anything! I was just standing here minding my own business, I swear!"

Amanda was laughing as she stepped back and gave him a kiss before releasing him. He looked stunned when Lee leaned across the counter and held out his hand. "Thanks for looking out for the family, Jed."

"Shucks, family's family, Ace, and those kids are great. Wish I could get Philip working in the motorpool here. How did you figure it out so fast?"

"You can't underestimate a protective mother, Jed, and she is a very smart woman."


End file.
